Articles by Lerna Ekmekcioglu
Études arméniennes contemporaines, 2023
In 1942, led by the novelist and poet LAS (Louise Aslanian), Armenian women participants of the F... more In 1942, led by the novelist and poet LAS (Louise Aslanian), Armenian women participants of the French Resistance founded the Fransahay Ganants Miutyun (“Union des femmes arméniennes”) in Paris. In the first two years of its existence the Union was an underground organization. While LAS was arrested a month before the liberation of Paris and died in the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp soon afterwards, her comrades decided to continue the fight though on a different platform. In November 1944 they came out of the underground and openly organized their first Central Committee. They began working on various “national” (azkayin) agendas such as the preservation of the Armenian language and culture, organization of summer camps for the children of the Armenian poor, financially assisting the families of the fallen resistance fighters, and commemorating the life of LAS, in particular by publishing her unpublished pieces. From early on the Union kept correspondence with Soviet Armenia but its ties became much firmer after Soviet Armenia’s repatriation (hayrenatartsutyun) calls in 1946. In March 1947 the Union began publishing a journal titled Hai Guine (“Armenian Woman”) which continued until 1949 and worked somewhat like a propaganda tool for what they usually called nerkaght (“in-migration”) or azkahavak (“in-gathering of the nation”). Yet dismissing this women’s journal as the mouthpiece of Stalin’s calls would not do justice to its feminist aim and content. This paper analyzes Hai Guine as a socialist feminist journal that was trans-historical and trans-national in its content and in terms of the background of its contributors.
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Documenting the Armenian Geonocide, 2024
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The All Made Peace- What is Peace? edited volume by Jonathan Conlin and Ozan Ozavci, 2023
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Aras Yayincilik, 2022
The introduction to Vartouhie Calantar-Nalbandian's prison memoirs. She was at Constantinople Cen... more The introduction to Vartouhie Calantar-Nalbandian's prison memoirs. She was at Constantinople Central Prison's Women's War for 2 years during WWI. She serialized her memoirs in 1920-21 in Hay Gin periodical of Istanbul. In 2022 together with Aras Yayincilik we published her memoirs as a book in its original Armenian. This is my Introduction.
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YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies 4, 2022
Given the previously unimaginable horrors Ottoman Armenians went through during
World War I, “th... more Given the previously unimaginable horrors Ottoman Armenians went through during
World War I, “the post-Armistice Years” has had a very different meaning for Armenians
than it has for any other group. One cannot understand the mütareke yılları without grasping the magnitude of the destruction that came right before it
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Mapping Gender (Orient-Institut Istanbul), 2022
Reflecting back on the last decade of scholarly production in this field, I detect both change an... more Reflecting back on the last decade of scholarly production in this field, I detect both change and an inability to change – perhaps even a resistance to it. Regarding the progress towards changes in the right direction, I observe that most scholars have stopped using »Ottoman « »Turkish« and »Muslim« interchangeably. This is a response, obviously, not just to our work on Armenians but also to other emerging literatures on Greek, Kurdish, Jewish, Circassian and Arab Ottoman feminists. The assumption that all Ottoman women were Turkish and Muslim has largely been broken. Armenian feminists that we featured in Bir Adalet Feryadı have even found their places in some high school and university syllabi. Conference organizers, documentary filmmakers, and book editors on Ottoman/Turkish feminist
history have all asked us to contribute to their projects with Armenian voices. Given the demand, more original work by Armenian feminists has been translated to Turkish (such as Zabel Yesayan’s). In short, what we hoped for, happened. What we dreaded, however, also
happened.
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YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies, 2021
I had started contemplating the politics of “historical unknowns” and the limits of knowability (... more I had started contemplating the politics of “historical unknowns” and the limits of knowability (and who knows what) while still an undergraduate student at Boğaziçi University’s Sociology Department (1997–2002), at a time when I was exploring my own visibility/invisibility as a Turkish Armenian feminist.
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Comparative Studies in Society and History, Jul 2013
This article explores a forcible, wartime transfer of women and minors from one ethnic group to a... more This article explores a forcible, wartime transfer of women and minors from one ethnic group to another, and its partial reversal after the war. I analyze the historical conditions that enabled the original transfer, and then the circum- stances that shaped the reverse transfer. The setting is Istanbul during and immediately after World War I, and the protagonists are various influential agents connected to the Ottoman Turkish state and to the Armenian Patriarchate. The absence and subsequent involvement of European Great Powers determines the broader, shifting context. The narrative follows the bodies of women and chil- dren, who were the subjects of the protagonists’ discourses and the objects of their policies. This is the first in-depth study to connect these two processes involved: the wartime integration of Armenian women and children into Muslim settings, and postwar Armenian attempts to rescue, reintegrate, and redis tribute them. I explain why and how the Armenian vorpahavak (gathering of orphans and widows) worked as it did, and situate it comparatively with similar events. I highlight its uniqueness, and the theoretical possibilities that it offers toward understanding why and how women, children, and reproduction matter to collectivities in crisis.
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Articles by Lerna Ekmekcioglu
World War I, “the post-Armistice Years” has had a very different meaning for Armenians
than it has for any other group. One cannot understand the mütareke yılları without grasping the magnitude of the destruction that came right before it
history have all asked us to contribute to their projects with Armenian voices. Given the demand, more original work by Armenian feminists has been translated to Turkish (such as Zabel Yesayan’s). In short, what we hoped for, happened. What we dreaded, however, also
happened.
World War I, “the post-Armistice Years” has had a very different meaning for Armenians
than it has for any other group. One cannot understand the mütareke yılları without grasping the magnitude of the destruction that came right before it
history have all asked us to contribute to their projects with Armenian voices. Given the demand, more original work by Armenian feminists has been translated to Turkish (such as Zabel Yesayan’s). In short, what we hoped for, happened. What we dreaded, however, also
happened.